Posted
by
msmash
on Monday May 23, 2016 @02:35PM
from the big-deal-with-breakfast dept.

Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? Plenty of people certainly believe that, but according to a new report, that notion is based on "misinterpreted research and biased studies." The New York Times has run a piece authored by Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, who looked into numerous studies -- and found flaws in them -- to conclude that breakfast isn't as important after all. (Could be paywalled; alternate source) He writes: The [reports] improperly used causal language to describe their results. They misleadingly cited others' results. And they also improperly used causal language in citing others' results. People believe, and want you to believe, that skipping breakfast is bad. Carroll also points out a conflict in many of such studies: most of them have been funded by the food industry. He concludes: The bottom line is that the evidence for the importance of breakfast is something of a mess. If you're hungry, eat it. But don't feel bad if you'd rather skip it, and don't listen to those who lecture you. Breakfast has no mystical powers.

I wonder if the debunkers have provided evidence that supports their position that breakfast is unimportant and can be skipped? Just because the "proof" for a hypothesis is debunked, does not automatically mean the opposite of the hypothesis is true.

Someone who just got finished ripping researchers a new one for improperly using causal language probably should avoid absolute statements. I couldn't actually find the source paper, but it certainly doesn't sound like it was a quantitative meta-analysis. "The evidence is a bit of a mess" is a statement that could be defended with this kind of study, but that's not the same as saying that breakfast isn't important.

There are two sides to every debate and no progress will be made until both sides are able to converse intelligently on the topic without marginalizing the source material or each other.

In the meantime there *are* people profiting from this mess and all debate like the above does is to generate page/ad views. Nobody in the media wants the rage to end because when it does so does the ad-impressions.

I typically don't have breakfast until 2.5 hours after I wake at 4:30AM and ride the express bus for 25 miles to work, getting my large skinny vanilla latte and breakfast sandwich at the cafeteria. Better to have breakfast after I'm done traveling in the morning. No risk of getting motion sickness and hurling on someone.

So, you spend pretty much 5 hours (2.5 hours each way) a day just traveling back and forth to work?!?!?

Nope. I get up at 4:30AM, I'm at the bus stop at 5:45AM, I'm at the cafeteria at 6:45AM, and I'm at my desk at 7:00AM. Going home can take 60 to 90 minutes to get home, depending on traffic conditions. I'm usually home by 5PM at the latest.

That's a LOT of life you're giving up there man.

I'm paying an extra $70 per month for the express bus to have someone else drive me through hell and back on the freeways. Meanwhile, I'm reading The Wall Street Journal in the morning and an ebook in the afternoon.

To get up that early...what time do you crash at? 8pm?

I usually fall asleep between 8:30PM and 10:30PM to get eight to six hours of sleep.

In addition to his explanation that it's only about 50-60 minutes, "express" in this case likely refers to the number of stops it makes, not how fast it goes. A non-express bus likely hits every stop, whereas the express one may skip several, or just go straight from starting point A to end point B.

I am not sure where the magical powers of breakfast came from.The most mythical thing about it is the fact that you hadn't had anything to eat usually in over 8 hours. So breakfast begins your normal eating schedule again.Either it being 5am or 1pm. I expect there is more problems for people who sometimes skip breakfast and sometimes do not. It isn't breakfast but trying to keep your body on a schedule.

That's how I see it. When I get up in the morning, I'm either hungry, or feel mildly sick to my stomach. Either way, I feel better after cramming food into me, and I think that's because it's the longest stretch without food.

I've been working out on an empty stomach in the mornings for years, only to be criticized by armchair specialists about how bad or impossible this is... There's plenty of reserve energy floating around the human body and there's nothing miraculous about physical activity on an empty stomach.You think our ancestors woke up to a fully stocked refrigerator every morning?

I've experimented with intermittent fasting. One of the benefits (besides weight loss) is that you feel sharper, more perceptive when you're a bit hungry. It's mind-altering, like taking a nootropic drug that actually works. Once you've tried it it makes extreme calorie restriction seem a bit more attractive.

The medical advice we've had I think overstates the evidence by equating any hunger with starvation, which are two different things. Starvation is your body cannibalizing itself to avoid death. Intermittent hunger is a normal and benign state; it's nature's signal to get off your ass and find something to eat.

The problem, as I like to say, is that evolution has gifted each one of us with an awesome mammoth killing machine, which we use sitting at a desk all day a few steps away from a refrigerator stockpiled with calorie-dense foods. And since we're not accustomed to normal hunger, we jump up and shove our face full of thousands of calories (surprisingly easy to do) because we think we're starving. So the grain of truth in the "never go hungry" philosophy is that if you aren't prepared for an occasional hunger pang, if you aren't going to be able to behave reasonably in the presence of unnatural quantities of unnatural foods, then you'd better avoid ever feeling hungry.

Hunger is stress -- like exercise. When you first start a strength training regime, you probably can't imagine you're doing this to your body. But you adapt, and you can take levels of stress that would have been impossible to tolerate at the beginning like they're nothing.

For me, after a year of trying this, I find that it is good for weight loss, but it makes me pretty damn stupid by early afternoon. Then again, I can't abuse caffeine or other stimulants (my brain chemistry is a bit strange) so YMMV

I had to quit breakfast in my late 20's to keep my food intake down to sustainable levels for my new metabolism. As I got older, one of the other meals has started to go too. If I just eat an Apple for lunch I really don't miss anything else. If I end up eating a full lunch, dinner is really unnecessary. If I tried the 3 meal thing, I'd either be one of those guys ordering bunless burgers with no fries and a water all the time, or I'd weigh over 300 pounds within a year or two.

aerobic exercise on an empty stomach for ~30 minutes has far better results. it starts burning calories from your stored fat instead of the calories in food in your stomach(because it doesn't exist).

While that's true, it's important to realize that your body is an adaptive system with complex behavior. So yes, your body burned fat (and probably some protein if you go for a long time) during fasting exercise because it has no choice, but remember your body also burns more calories after exercise in order to repair damage and to restock glycogen -- which is why high intensity interval training is more effective at fat burning than steady cardio, even though you burn fewer calories during exercise.

Assuming you eat the same number of calories per day, it doesn't matter if you eat before or after you exercise. If you eat afterwards, you are just replacing either some or all of the calories and fat that you burned, and you end up with the same caloric deficit in the end.

As somebody who runs 10 km 4 times a week, I'm gonna call BS on that one. You'll be fighting to work out 30 minutes, let alone get to "burning fat". If you get into it, working out isn't about burning calories, it's about building muscle and upping metabolism.

In high school on the football team if we didn't have weight lifting as a class you had to come in before school and work out. I did it fine without breakfast. Same with college: our football team would have 5 am morning workouts during the spring for a few weeks: all cardio and circuit type workouts, a good hour long not including stretching, no lifting. Again, did it perfectly fine without breakfast. In fact, it was advisable not to eat breakfast beforehand, but they did have trashcans strategically p

I'll eat a minimal lunch (always left overs = free mortgage payment per year:). Oh, wait, I don't have a mortgage anymore because I did that...

On the rare weekend days that I do eat breakfast I'll skip lunch altogether. I'm not hungry.

Dinner, for me, IS the most important meal -- and in many cases the ONLY meal I'll eat for the day.

No, I don't snack either. The funny thing is per US BMI fatso rules I am considered over-weight too boot. Of course they have always said that about me since grade school. I've always ignored it all. Even my doctor looked me up and down and said, "No -- you're just fine. Keep doing what you're doing."

Dinner, for me, IS the most important meal -- and in many cases the ONLY meal I'll eat for the day.No, I don't snack either. The funny thing is per US BMI fatso rules I am considered over-weight too boot.

Instead of spreading your food out, you're eating it in a lump and then lying down on it. Sounds like the kind of behavior that would normally cause problems.

- Sodium isn't bad for you (unless you have a special condition).- High fructose corn syrup isn't significantly different than regular sugar.- Aspertame has no significant health effects.- Fat isn't bad for you.- You don't have old undigested meat in your gut.- You don't need 8 glasses of water per day.- [Food item XYZ] isn't "brain food"- Caffeine doesn't cause heart problems- You don't need X servings of Y food per day- Health food isn't much better for you than regular food- Eggs don't give you a heart attack- Organic doesn't mean healthy. Neither does natural.- Chemicals are not bad for you.

I always understood the logic to this to be that basically the water keeps your stomach full so you don't feel as hungry. Plus the net benefit of drinking/processing it since it has no calories.

It's just the artificial quantity that's usually the objection. Eight glasses? Where did they come up with that? My stomach may just be smaller than yours, so it's easier to achieve the same effects you describe. It is generally accepted that water aids your body in the elimination of waste in various ways, so drinking it is good for you. But there's no set amount... generally speaking, if you feel thirsty you are dehydrated, so you need to catch up on your water intake (and improve your habits). Otherwise

(I am not a doctor or nutritionist, but I read what I can and watch the whole spectrum of Netflix documentaries, from the obvious to the eccentric.)

That's not a bad list, but...

- Sodium isn't bad for you (unless you have a special condition).

Sodium levels in the body can be fairly independent of ingested sodium. Some people can retain high sodium (and have high BP) even if their salt intake is very minimal. A prescription can bring that sodium down to safe values. But yes, for a lot of people, sodium intakes seems to be of only minimal consequence.

I thought there was that issue where HFCS doesn't trigger the fullness response in the same way as plain sugar, provoking people to consume more. Has that been debunked now? But nutritionally, I generally treat all the "added sugars" as the same. Try eliminating all added sugar for a year and then eat an apple. They taste awesome.

- Aspertame has no significant health effects.

I don't eat anything that tastes awful, so I haven't even looked into it. And also, I don't trust anything "unnatural" (using my definition).

For some people, it can cause heart palpitations. That seems like a problem to me.

- Health food isn't much better for you than regular food

If "regular food" is what most people eat, then I think there is a big difference. But if you mean brown eggs versus white eggs, than probably not. The brown shells are better, though, because they're a little easier to spot in the frying pan.

- Eggs don't give you a heart attack

The only thing that I got from that big China study was that eggs looked pretty good andthat eating only 1-10 servings of vegetables PER YEAR (in two provinces) was really bad. Those same two provinces were also the only places where anyone drank a considerable amount of milk and that was used for some very sketchy claims against dairy.

Doctors tell me that ingested cholesterol only accounts for like 5% of your blood levels, so if you're doing a Cool Hand Luke on a regular basis, your probably pushing your luck.

- Organic doesn't mean healthy. Neither does natural.

If "organic" means no-pesticides, then I'm all for it, where I can afford it. "Natural" on the package doesn't mean anything useful and it probably will always be a junk marketing term. I use "natural" to mean anything that you could find while wandering around on the planet. Of course, then, arsenic is natural, so that isn't a good enough criteria by itself.

I try to stick to buying food with one ingredient. It's not a perfect rule (I like vinegar in my pickles), but I think the intent is solid and it is a good mantra in the grocery store.

While you are rightish in generalization many of those statements have specific exceptions. A good example is essential fatty acids. A key requirement for brain cells. They are also "essential" because we have to eat them - our bodies cannot make them from food that does not already contain them. The richest source of essential fatty acids is seafood and everything else has thousands of times less. So seafood really is brainfood - especially in childhood.

Specific substances are bad in specific doses -- and sometimes for people with specific conditions.

But this is just a fatuous way to weasel out of the overly broad statement you made earlier, that chemicals are not bad for you. The prospect of drinking a bottle of ammonia aside (as that would be silly), mercury and lead can both enter your body via a "normal" diet through various means, and neither is ever good for you, in any quantity.

If you are going to work your balls off, you'd better eat breakfast. If you are going to sit on ass all day, you can probably skip it, unless you're hungry. You can now skip this article, and every other article like it. Tada!

If you are going to work your balls off, you'd better eat breakfast. If you are going to sit on ass all day, you can probably skip it, unless you're hungry. You can now skip this article, and every other article like it. Tada!

If you are going to work your balls off, you'd better have a lot of Vitamin D too...

If I sleep in I feel fine. If I force myself to get up early for work (which I do most days) then I feel groggy and not-hungry for 2-3 hours, if I force myself to eat something shortly after waking (usually a banana or prawn sandwich) I feel better for those 2-3 hours and gain an appetite for a full meal quicker.

I find it ironic that in an article about how imprecise and loose language led to the notion that breakfast is somehow special compared to other meals, the summary uses the term magical and the article uses the term mystical.

I agree; if you aren't hungry, don't eat (breakfast or any other meal). On the other hand I love something in the morning and my preference is Bulletproof Coffee. It is nice because it only contains fat and therefore doesn't get your insulin going right when you wake up.

On the other hand I love something in the morning and my preference is Bulletproof Coffee. It is nice because it only contains fat and therefore doesn't get your insulin going right when you wake up.

There's also stevia, or erythritol. I like to use them together, you can buy products which do that for you but I just put them both in things. I actually prefer my coffee with just cream, which has very little sugar anyway, but if I make cocoa then I use the other stuff.

Yes, I ask the question about sleep mainly because I know of exactly zero humans who have ever managed to achieve that whole 8-hours-of-sleep shit on any regular basis, and yet we seem to survive and thrive.

I think the whole point of driving the importance of breakfast has less to do with forcing people to eat at a certain hour, and has more to do with the fact that your body hasn't consumed any fuel at that point in roughly 10 - 12 hours, and things start to go downhill for most humans with regards to energy levels and overall alertness after a certain point of no food or drink. This tolerance to avoiding varies from individual to individual, thus no "studies" are necessary, only personal experience.

Yes, I ask the question about sleep mainly because I know of exactly zero humans who have ever managed to achieve that whole 8-hours-of-sleep shit on any regular basis, and yet we seem to survive and thrive.

I have aimed for, and usually achieved, an average of eight hours of sleep every night for the past 20-25 years. (Before that I was a salaried employee and had to commute, which does make it almost impossible to get enough sleep).

Human beings are phenomenally adaptable, and can put up with amazing deprivations while continuing to function (more or less). But lack of sleep can be more of a mental handicap than mild drunkenness, and there is a lot of evidence that it's bad for your health. Unfortunately moder

to know if I don't eat something in the morning, I will be very distracted until later for lunch time.

One thing to note is ***never*** eat melons along with other foods. If you do eat melons, have them alone then wait for at least 30 minutes before something else. A chart showing food combinations pointed this out, before I saw that my stomach never felt that great after eating melons along with other stuff especially at hotel breakfast buffets.

Anyone else here old enough to remember the Four basic food groups [wikipedia.org], one of which was entirely taken up by Dairy, which a lot of humans flat out can't digest properly at all? After a while (and a lot of embarrassing gastrointestinal distress), they decided that was BS and created the Food Pyramid [wikipedia.org]. The basic idea of that one was that you should be eating a metric shitload of breads. Today we call those "carbs", and these same types of people will tell you to avoid them like the plague.

Point being that nutrition "experts" have a long proud history of being completely full of shit. They'll even admit it. But that was before. They're right this time.

Breakfast thing being case in point. Young people should probably be fed if they are hungry, but if they aren't its usually downright stupid to force food on them. For older people this goes triple. I found with advancing age that my metabolism has slowed down to the point where if I try to force even 2 meals a day on myself, I gain weight. That's bad. Much, much worse than just eating only the 1 or 2 times a day I'm actually hungry.

There are no set number of meals that are correct. We're hunter-gatherers. We eat when we're hungry, that's it. Everything about "three square meals" is bollocks that originated in Victorian times (along with "no elbows on the tables" - also bollocks, and not 'rude', even the Queen does it).

Same for any categorisation of foods into groups of any numbers. Nutrition experts are paid to tell you about nutrition. Unless you die from malnutrition or throw up everywhere, it's hard to prove them wrong.

Point being that nutrition "experts" have a long proud history of being completely full of shit. They'll even admit it. But that was before. They're right this time.

Actually, nutritional advice began very slowly and badly in the 18th century (and earlier), reached a pretty high level or accuracy in the first half of the 20th century, and then went all to hell in the 1960s and 1970s. Probably because of the influence of money and power.

The first scientific research on nutrition was funded by industrialists who basically wanted to know what to feed their workers to get the maximum work for the minimum cost, without the workers dying too young or being unable to breed and

Well I haven't eaten what is normally known as "breakfast" for about 7 years. (Of course, as it is technically defined as when you "break your fast", your first meal of the day is breakfast even if eaten at 10 pm). For what it's worth, I have noticed absolutely no ill effects of any kind.

Instead, following the recommendation of a growing number of nutritionists and doctors, I eat two meals a day at approximately noon and 6 pm. That's ample for someone of my age (late 60s) and conveniently allows for an 18-hour semi-fast between dinner and the following day's lunch. (I don't count coffee with lashings of double cream, although strictly it has quite a few calories).

The idea that you have to eat every few hours or you run out of blood sugar and faint has certainly been debunked. And anyway, it makes no sense. After a decent meal, it takes the food over an hour even to be liquidized in your stomach - before it can move on to digestion proper - and then your guts take 12-24 hours to extract most of the nutrients. So it's fairly obvious that you are getting nutrients drip-fed into your blood all that time. And indeed, it's very easy and painless to fast for 24-72 hours, because by the time the food in your intestines has been thoroughly absorbed, your body has automatically and transparently shifted to burning body fat. When I fast, I sometimes feel mild hunger pangs a couple of times the first day, but from the second morning a different (and very enjoyable) state sets in: no hunger, no indigestion, no feeling of fulness at all. It's almost as if you were without a digestive system for the time being, which gives it and you a rest. Incidentally, this is an ideal state to be in if you want to get a lot of work done without interruptions. If you can get into flow, you can work steadily for hour after hour without getting any hassle from your body.

What most of us mistake for hunger is a conditioned reflex, which we have set up to hit us at "mealtimes". Real hunger manifests as tiredness, and may be hard to recognize at first if you are not used to it.

I very rarely eat breakfast. In fact, I rarely have an appetite until I've been up for at least an hour or two.

When people say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I generally reply that Lunch is the least important meal of the day - except when it's first. And for me, Lunch is almost always first;-)

My bad. BMR. No wonder google didn't help.
Basal metabolic rate is the amount of calories you would consume if you were bedridden. We need a huge amount of calories simply for brain and organ function. Basic BMR calculators are a good way to start.

Ignore everything but calorie in and calorie out.
At 5'10" and 200 pounds your BSR is in the 1900 calorie / day range. (Look it up).
Figure out how much you exercise (walk, stairs, gym, bike, etc..) and work with that.

But none of that works. Calorie out is a guess that's immeasurable. Calories in is also not measurable (unless you make 10 of every meal, and measure the calories in 9, eat 1, and measure the calories in your poop). So the theory is correct, but the measures are useless.

It's been working for me for years. I track what I eat and go on a weekly basis. Example if you need 2000 calories a day you should eat 14,000 a week. If saturday you have 4000 and sunday you have 3000 then you need to eat 3000 less then following 5 days.

It's works. Is calorie counting exact? No. Not at all.

I happen to think that calorie out is fairly straight forward and is probably the easier of the two. My BMR is 1800 calories. Walk briskly for 20 minutes and I use up 140 calories. The calorie in

So you spend a week living in a controlled environment where it was measured?

No, you are making up numbers that fit your personal experience, and asserting they apply to everyone, when they apply to nobody, including you. Your delusion doesn't become reality, even if you really really believe it.

Yes. However I find too many people make excuses based on trivial things. I happen to eat 75% of my calories within an hour or two before going to bed. I'm no longer in my 20s or 30s but I carefully watch my calories. I don't have a six pack but I'm in good shape. I always hear "why are you watching what you're eating - you're not fat."

My own observation is that obese people tend to skip or have a very light breakfast. They then make up for it by having a big lunch, dinner and then snacks right up until bedtime. I've always felt that you should be a little hungry when you go to bed, then have a good size breakfast in the morning. Improves sleep, and sets you up for the day, with only a light lunch and dinner required. I also find that it prevents you from feeling tired in the afternoon.

My observation is that obese people eat snacks. Blaming it on breakfast or no breakfast is a diversion.

Some do, others eat healthy foods, but their bodies have betrayed them. For some of us it's easy to stay fit, so we can easily make the mistake of thinking obese people are gluttons. Some are, and alcohol abuse often plays a role in this, but others exercise and eat healthy food, but can't lose weight. There are even obese vegetarians.

I am obese by all measurements. I weigh about 250lbs but I am not super fat. I do not eat breakfast, I don't snack while I am at work and I eat 2 very sensible meals a day. There are people I know that are much skinnier than I am, that eat 2-3x as much as I do. I also exercise a fair amount by necessity since I don't own a car and use my bicycle for everything. I can sprint for a few city blocks without too much trouble and I am never winded after climbing stairs 6 flights of stairs (which I do several time

Some do, others eat healthy foods, but their bodies have betrayed them.

The New York Times had an article on a scientific study of the 2009 Biggest Loser contestants who regain their weight because their metabolism slowed down while dieting (expected) but their metabolism never recovered (unexpected). If they ate the normal calories for their height and weight, they would be eating an extra 400 to 800 calories that their body wants to regain the lost weight.

My own observation is that obese people tend to skip or have a very light breakfast. They then make up for it by having a big lunch, dinner and then snacks right up until bedtime.

My observation too. I have always been slim and fit, and I eat little and often:- Breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon tea, evening dinner, and supper.

OTOH my brother-in-law only eats once a day (around 6pm) and has a massive blow-out at that time. He is shaped like a barrel I believe because that huge meal over the years has stretched his stomach muscles and gut to collapse point. He makes his kids eat like that too - the poor sods are in tears with hunger by mid-afternoon.

Many of the above postings are indirectly saying that metabolism is individual, and while some "collective" rules may make sense (get some exercise, don't overeat), not everything generalizes. I suspect breakfast is one of those non-generalizable things.

We all have to find out what works best for us. I find that a small breakfast prevents me from being overly hungry at lunch and then eating more than I should. A large breakfast might have me skipping lunch and being overly hungry at dinner. I'm in the multiple small meals category, but I don't pretend this applies to everyone.

I'd thought that till recently. I was getting extremely exhausted late aftenoon. I moved breakfast into late morning, lunch to early afternoon, and kept my afternoon snack. It has improved my energy issues and I get away with a lighter lunch since it is closer to my previous afternoon snack. I've discovered that I'm not usually hungry when I wake up.

I've always heard that you should eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen, and dinner like a pauper.

You should be able to eat most anything you want for breakfast because you'll work off those Calories during the day while you work, IF you actually work. A lot of people nowadays do little if any physical work. Those are the ones who are either overweight or working out to stay slim.